To many a CEO, search engine optimization will either sound like “black magic” or expensive, or more likely, both. So this is written to provide some insight into what you are spending money on, what you should be spending money on and what you shouldn’t.
If you’re expecting it as a commodity buy, you will want to alter that mindset. Like any other business expense, you will compare what a client is worth and how many you need to acquire in order to recoup.
You just have to understand a little about your business’ website. Forget about graphics and artwork, we’re talking about the portion of your site that only the search engines and their bot armies can see. Your website needs to be fluent in their language as well as the language of your website visitors. This is initially what you’re investing in and the information pertains to not only to what’s on your site, but is related to what is on other businesses websites. In other words, parts of it can be simple and parts of it can be as complicated as multi-dimensional chess.
So what is the strategy for SEO?
First, understand that typically 75-80% of traffic for a website comes from search engines. And research shows that most people don’t go beyond the first 2 pages of results. If you’re not doing something with an eye to optimization, at best you’re leaving money on the table and at worst, your competitors are grabbing it. And who in their right mind would let that happen?
Your company website coming up first when you search for your company name or website doesn’t count. You need to have your site come up when customers are using search terms for the service or product you provide while they search in Google, Yahoo, Bing or other search engines.
Now what specific tactics are used to advance the strategy?
This is where an SEO company will look at two different aspects of your website – the on-page – what is read by a search engine and indexed (or not indexed) and the off-page – what other sites communicate to search engines about your site.
What most businesses don’t know is that even for a 100% fully-optimized site – the on-page factors account for only 20 – 30% of the reason why a search engine places a particular site within the results where they do. Which means, the rest, namely 70 -80% of the weight comes from other factors off the site that account why sites are in the #1, 2, or 3 spot.
The good news is that most sites are not fully-optimized. The bad news is many established sites have been at this for a long time and they have a large contingent of sites that tells the search engines “this site is an authority about x”. And this portion is typically “the easy part.”
ON PAGE Factors
The information you have on your site - the actual content and the meta-data that you may or may not have included on your site is what is called “on-page” factors. This means defining what specific keywords you’re wanting to go for overall.
There are some specific locations to put meta-data that can be read by the search engines. You don’t have to be an SEO expert, all you need to remember is its title, description, URL, and header info. Most webmasters should know what this is – although you would be working with them most likely to refine the information to conform to a format that most search engines consider “expected”. This is not an area to be creative, in other words. When it comes to search engines, follow instructions.
OFF PAGE Factors
This is an ever increasing range of factors – basically it boils down to other sites linking back to your site. Those sites that link back to your site will be a guide for the search engines to rate the authority So this is where hiring an seo firm can get interesting. There are multiple ethical ways to increase links and most of those require hard work, elbow grease and some degree of imagination.
The amount of time spent on off page factors once the on page factors are in place will most likely be 100% of the time.
How long before you see results?
Once you start having efforts made to SEO your site on and off page, you will most likely see it “bounce” around before it settles into a regular spot. It takes approx 3 months for this process to settle. Whether its for a restuarant or a Fortune 500 company, the steps to increasing backlinks aka “the work”, it takes the same effort no matter what.
Also, note that very competitive search terms will require a longer committment to acheive higher rankings. Keywords that have a decent amount of searches but not a lot of people optimizing for will start ranking relatively quickly. So how long it takes is relative to how many other sites are aiming for the same target keyword.
How will you know its working?
You should begin to notice an increase in the traffic naturally coming to site especially when viewing the search terms that source the traffic. Analytics are critical to have in place before you start any SEO/SEM because with them you can see a relationship between what you’re paying for and what its bringing you. You are to be able to see when you’re moving only when you know where you were.
How long will this last?
Assuming you’re providing something that people what or need to purchase, your SEM efforts will stay effective. What you are not in control of is what your competitor’s do in response to whatever SEO efforts you have done. If you have more or higher authority links than your competitor, you most likely will rank higher until such time as they get more or higher authority links. Its like the search engines grade on a curve, it depends on whose in your class.
Monthly reporting
Part of what you’re paying for each month is the time for reports to be prepared demonstrating ranking and traffic for the site. The items to look for are traffic and the specific keywords bringing in the traffic. Ideally, you will be able to see more and more general keywords and not just your business name.
Final words about SEO
A word about visitor behavior, all the best SEO in the world for your business won’t matter if your website experience isn’t conducive to the visitor. Your SEO should get a visitor to your site, your compelling description and offerings are what keeps them. So don’t blame your SEO company if you can’t convert a visitor to a client, their job is to get them there, your job is to keep them there.
It is in a company’s best interests to maximize the visit of a prospect to the site. Capture of their name and email in exchange for a white paper, or a special report or a personalized review of their needs are some best practices and then a timed repeat communication by email is the most effective way to change a visitor to a client.
If you would like to speak with someone about SEO in general or to review your current website, fill out a contact page at Your Austin SEO Company to have someone get back with you.
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